Trouble In My Mind
by Jack Lecter
Summary: Sorta Songfic. Set in Female Trouble. Probably an OK PG but just for safety a PG13


Trouble In My Mind  
By The Shadower  
Disclaimer: I don't own Max, Logan, or Dark Angel. I also don't own "Empire of my Mind" by The Wallflowers. James Cameron and Eglee and maybe some others own D.A. and Max and Logan and The Wallflowers own "Empire of my Mind."  
  
Spoilers: Female Trouble  
  
Archiving: Don't actually know what it is but I probably won't mind.  
  
Dedication: To Tarance B. Hillen, who helped me find myself, then helped me express it.  
  
Rating: PG-13 (Suicide related ideas, violence, emotional intensity, mild profanity.)  
  
Pairing: None, really. Possibly a little implied M/L  
  
Feedback: Please, it would be greatly appreciated. My first real fic (Certainly first on this site).  
  
Summary: Sort of a songfic. AU Rewrite of the Suicidal scene with Logan at the end of Female Trouble. Departs from cannon because I thought the thing with the old lady was really clichéd.  
  
A/N: This is my first attempt to post something at this site so it could malfunction somehow.  
  
Logan started to propel himself into his wheelchair, but stopped. Max had just given him what was undoubtedly the worst news of his life and was about to leave. He knew she needed to leave, needed to get to Verte's files and destroy them before Lydecker thought to scan them. It was a grim race on which unimaginable consequences rested and she had to hurry if she wanted to win. That was why he hadn't told her about his decision. In an odd way, it was one he had made days ago, and in the same odd way he had told Max about it. Staying out of that wheelchair matters more to me than anything else in my life. Let's just say I'm not gonna live my life like that. He was thankful her genetically enhanced memory hadn't happened to retrieve those particular bits of data. She needed to go and she needed to go now. She stopped walking and turned back to face him. He looked at her, his gaze conveying a kind of annoyed urgency that was calculated to get her moving, not in "just one more minute", but right now. "Logan..." He allowed himself a moment just to look at her. He knew it was the last he would ever see of her. Her eyes stared at him uncertainly, full of worry and concern. "This is gonna be alright." He placated her with a nod and a "Yeah" that sounded only a little halfhearted, much better than he felt. And why shouldn't it, he mused, halfhearted was an good half heart more than he felt. She nodded to herself, affirming that everything was indeed going to be fine. He allowed her the delusion. She rose her eyes to meet his one last time. "See you later." He almost told her right then. He wanted to be honest with her, but he knew it would only make it that much harder for her. Once again he placated her, feeding her delusion with a "Yeah see you later" that sounded almost normal. She walked out of the apartment and he propelled himself into the wheelchair. He just sat for a moment, thinking. He heard the first notes of a song coming from a radio somewhere, in some other apartment.  
  
There is trouble in my mind,  
  
There is dark, There's dark and there is light, Lay your hands above my eyes, 'Cause I look deep, To valleys deep and wide, Across the borderline, For the empire of my mind.  
  
He just sat, listening for a moment, then wheeled himself over to his desk and opened a drawer. The gun was there, just as he'd known it would be, stacked next to boxes of bullets.  
*********  
Max rode on her motorcycle, thinking. Something was bothering her, something she couldn't quite get a hold of. Logan's face kept coming back into her mind, and she kept hearing the way he said "Yeah, see you later." There was a hesitation in his tone, as if he were teetering on the brink of saying something else but not quite there. Yeah, see you later. She gunned the engine, trying to drown out the sound of his voice, but even her motorcycle could not banish this abomination from her mind. Yeah, see you later. Dammit, there was something wrong in his tone. Something she didn't want to hear. Yeah, see you later. She banged her fist against the dashboard in frustration. Yeah, see you later. A truck driver cut her off and she yelled a profanity at him. He just laughed. Yeah, see you later. She sped up her motorcycle and leveled with his truck. He leered at her through the window. Yeah, see you later. And suddenly her motorcycle was slamming into the side of his truck and she putting her arms through the open truck window and grabbing him by the throat. He let out a gasping sound and she let go of him and got back on her motorcycle. She started driving again. Yeah, see you later. She turned on the radio, hoping to get some other music into her head, maybe some hard rock. The radio was playing some song that wasn't hard rock, but for some reason she didn't change stations.  
  
You are the reason I don't see  
  
You are a light, That's breaking through the leaves. You know how hard I try, To believe, I have something good inside, Of the very case I find, For the empire of my mind.  
  
She pulled up to Verte's office and dismounted.  
  
*****************  
Logan took the gun out of the drawer carefully and weighed it in his hand. It was surprisingly light, made mostly of plastic. He took a bullet out of its package and weighed it in his hand. He thought about how it would feel going through his skull.  
  
I have no love, so where is thine  
  
I've been lifted up, I've looked honor in the eyes I have no reason I have no why I cannot deny, There's a darkness that's inside I am guilty by design, And now I realize, Temptation's made me blind To the empire of my mind.  
  
Logan felt himself give into despair, to a kind of unquenchable longing for one of life's simplest pleasures. He merely wanted to walk. That would never happen now. He looked at the gun again, a cold determination in his eyes.  
*******  
Max looked through the file cabinet, rifling through the C's until she came to "Cale, Logan." She put the file under her arm. And started to leave. Breaking in had been a snap, the rather flimsy lock on the front door had proved no obstacle at all. She selected four other files, all belonging to patients who had recently undergone medical procedures. Three were dead and one had made a miraculous recovery. Max had read all about it in the newspapers. Doctors were calling it a medical miracle. Max tossed a match into the trash basket, where it ignited on the discarded scrap paper that made up the basket's contents. She tucked the miraculous recovery file under her arm, and threw one of the others into the fire. The basket was metal, which kept the flames from destroying the rest of the office. Max would leave another torn up in a dumpster outside, and let the third burn in one of the fires that were lit in alleys across the city, warmth for the derelicts. She would keep the recovery file. Hopefully everyone would be so caught up on what happened to miracle boy's file they would overlook the absence of Logan's. And if they didn't, they could scour the trashcan for clues as to which file had been burned, or try to reconstruct the torn pages in the dumpster outside. Max knew a cop of any intelligence would find the pages and wonder what they meant. She was about to go about this when Logan's voice echoed in her head again. Yeah, see you later. On impulse, she opened Logan's file. She found the psychological evaluation and skimmed it. Words jumped out at her randomly, but one recurred throughout the document. Suicidal Tendencies, Suicide, Self- destructive... And it all came together for her. Logan was going to kill himself. He had said as much in the car earlier today. I'm not gonna live my life like that. Praying that she wouldn't be too late, Max rushed out onto her motorcycle, taking the files with her.  
*****  
Logan looked down at the gun in his hand and came to a decision. He slipped the single bullet into the clip. His hand moved slowly but it was steady and there was a decisiveness to it. The bullet entered the gun with a soft click.  
  
There is no order, There is chaos and there is crime, There is no one, No one tonight, In the empire of my mind.  
  
Max gunned her motorcycle wishing the damn thing could go faster. The world around her was an undecernable blur as it was and she was still afraid she would be too late.  
*********** Logan, moving with the same cold decisiveness, brought the gun up to his temple. As he felt the cold steel against his head, he wondered. He wondered if life had been worth it for him. He certainly hadn't been happy, with the death of his family and now this. He wondered how Max would react. It occurred to him that she might be the one to find his body. But then that thought skittered into the dark corners of his brain like a cockroach. He ran his finger along the hammer, then over the trigger and the barrel to his temple. He was now resigned to his fate, and he felt nothing but a pure raw sadness that encompassed his being. He knew death would release him from that. There is no distance that I see, I do have a world, No limits to my reach He did not pray. He had stopped believing in god the day his family died and he had no illusions about the nature of death. Death was oblivion. I wish I would, I wish I might Feels like tonight, separated wrong from right, Logan moved his thumb back to the hammer and pulled. The click was loud in the silence.  
  
I'm just to old to try  
  
And maybe that's the reason why, Logan tightened his finger on the trigger. I'm afraid someday I'll find, There is no empire of my mind. Logan pulled the trigger. He heard a click, and then there was nothing.  
************  
Max burst into the room. She froze for a moment, then collapsed. An hour later Bling walked into the apartment, ready to give Logan a pep talk. He stopped when he saw the tragic scene before him, taking in Logan, shot to the head, and Max sobbing hysterically. He rushed to Max and frantically demanded to know what happened. She stopped crying and just stared at him. After a moment, she spoke. She said the only thing that seemed to work, the only thing that seemed to take in the immense sadness of it all. "The rest," she said, "Is silence." Logan had read that to her out of some play called "Hamlet." He'd said it was a famous line, considered to be one of the greatest ever written. It was Hamlet's death rattle, and, in a way, it was hers too. She was dead now. Dead inside.  
  
A/N: Logan is actually my favorite DA character with the possible exception of Max. I was thinking of doing a sequel to this looking at how Max's life is different and how she herself is different due to these AU events. Let me know if you think that's a good idea. 


End file.
